Trump won’t say “radical Islam”

Throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump claimed that the only way to defeat “radical Islam” was to say “radical Islam”…

But in his 25-minute, 3,000-word speech, Trump did not use the term “radical Islam” even once.

Number of times used in 3,000-word speech

“Radical Islam”

0

“Radical”

0

“Islam”

0

Low ratings

Trump’s speech was one of the lowest-rated major presidential addresses in memory– another sign that Americans are increasingly tuning out Trump.

Trump’s 1st Afghanistan speech

28 million

Trump’s Gorsuch announcement

33 million

Obama farewell address

34 million

Obama’s 1st Afghanistan speech

41 million

This whole fucking thing is because the most premium cable TV show thing to ever happen, happened.

In a plot out of Homeland or Game of Thrones, Ahmad Shah Massoud was a revered anti-Soviet insurgent that later rejected fundamentalist Islam and resisted the Taliban.

Massoud’s heroics earned him the nickname “Lion of Panjshir”, and the WSJ once referred to him as “the Afghan who won the Cold War”.

But in anticipation of the US response to 911, al-Qaeda assassinated Massoud on September 9, 2001 via undercover suicide bomber— destroying any chance the US could leave Afghanistan united behind a West-agnostic, pluralistic-ish, anti-Taliban leader.

There is much to criticize about US foreign policy under W., Obama, and Trump, but history is often decided– not just by events outside our control– but variables beyond our perception.